


By the Number

by dbhprincess



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Boys In Love, Comfort, Feelings, Light Angst, M/M, Post-Pacifist Best Ending (Detroit: Become Human)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-13
Updated: 2021-02-13
Packaged: 2021-03-12 20:27:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,040
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29390511
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dbhprincess/pseuds/dbhprincess
Summary: Connor wants a new face. Or more accurately, he wants to feel less like a serial number and more like himself. Always ready to help the android who means so much to him navigate the pitfalls of life, Hank takes him shopping. What Hank doesn’t expect is to come home with more than he ever thought he could have.
Relationships: Hank Anderson/Connor
Comments: 12
Kudos: 40





	By the Number

**Author's Note:**

> Based on a [prompt](https://twitter.com/dbhprincess/status/1358830273396232192) from [LadyDrace](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyDrace). Thank you for the inspiration!

When Hank walked into his brightly lit bathroom on a Saturday morning, scratching his belly and picking crust from the corner of his eye, he startled, then nearly laughed out loud. Standing stock still in front of the oval mirror was Connor, frowning so hard back at his reflection that Hank half expected to see a few of the sticky notes hanging around its edges flutter to the ground. Their messages had been of a much more positive slant of late, but the distaste that curled sharply at the corner of Connor’s beautiful mouth could make even the cheeriest note shrivel up and drop in brittle defeat.

Wiping his finger across the front of his t-shirt, Hank said, “Woke up on the wrong side of the bed, did ya?”

Connor’s eyes found his between the splatters of mint toothpaste that decorated the mirror far less attractively than Connor’s moles decorated his face. The furrow between his eyes softened, but the deep creases around his mouth did not.

“I didn’t enter stasis last night, Hank. And if I had, I would have _woken_ ” – he pronounced the word with audible air quotes – “on the couch, which only has one side on which to–”

“Oh for fuck’s sake, Connor, never mind,” Hank scoffed, though he placed a gentle hand on Connor’s shoulder when he stepped up to the sink and grabbed his toothbrush. “You know what I meant, Captain Literal. What’s the matter?”

Connor huffed and watched Hank spread a gelatinous, green blob across the fraying bristles of his toothbrush before sticking it in his mouth. “It’s stupid.”

“You’re incapable of being stupid,” Hank mumbled around the suds foaming on his lips. He leaned over and spat, then resumed brushing. “Weird, sure. But you’re too smart to be stupid. So come on, what gives?”

Connor’s expression softened completely at being called weird (which only validated the moniker further), but then he turned back to the mirror, and this time Hank saw a lost sort of wistfulness settle over the sculpted curves of his face.

“I think I want a new face.”

Hank choked a bit and spat again. “The fuck?”

“I feel like one of those paint-by-number kits.” Connor lifted an elegant hand to trace his forefinger along his strong jaw to the corner of his mouth and across his full bottom lip. Hank’s eyes followed the path against his will. “Precisely designed, pleasing, perfect.” Connor’s finger dragged down the ridge of his nose and stopped above his sneer. “Predictable.”

Hank tried valiantly to reign in the disbelief that he knew was plastered on his face. Connor was new to all this, after all. New to awareness and independence of thought, and the doubts and insecurities such freedom of mind inevitably brought. So, he tried for a little humor. “Well, better a predictable picture than messy scribbles,” he said, gesturing with his free hand toward his own reflection.

Connor turned his body away from the mirror and swung his big, brown eyes over to encapsulate all of Hank in his gaze. “But that’s what makes you special, Hank. No one sat down and decided how you would look or what you would be like. No one built you to be exactly what _they_ wanted you to be. You look as you do, you are who you are, through the chance of DNA and life. Something greater than a company with an eye for profit has shaped you into a completely unique, wonderful individual. You may think you’re messy, but I like you messy, Hank.”

With toothpaste dripping down the hand still holding his toothbrush, Hank gaped, desperately trying to focus on what Connor was saying about himself and not what Connor said about liking Hank messy, because Hank would very much like to see Connor messy, too, preferably the both of them together, and that was a thought Hank most assuredly should not be thinking. He quickly rinsed everything off and grabbed the hand towel, though he didn’t take his eyes off the android before him who was currently staring at the floor, a light blue tinge gracing his cheekbones, LED spinning yellow.

Connor turned back to the mirror. “People may find my face aesthetically pleasing.” His lip curled again, this time in a small smile, and he cut his eyes to Hank. “Or they may find it goofy.” Hank snorted, and Connor’s smile dropped again. “But they can also find it all over, because I’m not the only RK800 out there.”

He sighed. “See, I’m being stupid, aren’t I? I’m moping because I’m not unique enough.”

Hank hung up the towel and placed a hand on Connor’s shoulder for a second time. “Nah, you’re just figuring out you and who you really want to be.” He squeezed once before dropping his hand, not wanting to linger too long and perhaps make Connor uncomfortable. Connor swayed toward him for a moment, and Hank figured he was probably adjusting for the abrupt weight fluctuation. Why else would he lean in like that?

Hank cleared his throat and grabbed his hair brush. “Hey, so, aren’t there, like, modifications androids can do, or make, or whatever? You know, buy yourself a new nose or something? I mean, the android at the sandwich shop the other day had gold teeth, for Christ’s sake.” Hank took a few swipes through his unruly waves. “Believe me, Connor, you’re definitely unique already, but if something like that would help you feel it, then you should go for it.”

A light sparked in the brown eyes that still stared into the mirror, and Hank watched excitement ignite and glow beneath Connor’s skin and in the swirling rotations of his now blue LED. This time, Connor’s smile was large and full, and it was directed fully at Hank. His heart absorbed Connor’s happiness until it could do nothing more than overflow into quickening beats that routed an embarrassing flush to his skin. Hank could only hope that Connor was too distracted by his own concerns to notice.

Connor turned quickly to Hank once more, grabbing his biceps and stepping into his space. “Will you come shopping with me, Hank?” Connor leaned impossibly closer, and Hank’s eyes nearly crossed to look at him. “Please?” he asked, his husky voice soft and sweet.

Now, how could Hank say no to that?

\-----

“Uh, Connor?” Hank asked as he pulled up to the curb in front of the little boutique Connor had navigated him to. “What are we doing here? I don’t need to buy glasses.”

Connor swiveled in his seat to give Hank a look, and Hank coughed, studiously avoiding those condemning eyes. Okay, fine, Hank occasionally had to pull out his readers, when it was late and his eyes were tired. The print on some of his old paperbacks was disturbingly small.

Connor smirked at him, because of course he knew exactly what Hank was thinking, then answered Hank’s question. “No, you don’t, but I do. We’re here for my first modification.”

Hank did a double take between the optical shop and Connor’s earnest eyes, then back. “Come again?”

Connor sat back and looked steadily out the windshield. “I find your reading glasses very…appealing.” He had raised his hands and was motioning hesitantly, as if he hoped to shape the words he needed with the same deftness that he manipulated his coin. “Distinguished. I’d like to see if the right frames could make me feel…” Connor trailed off, clearly trying to articulate the experience he was seeking. His hands settled quietly in his lap as he finished, “More myself.”

He looked at Hank and smiled. “It’s just for looks, of course. The lenses wouldn’t provide any vision correction.”

Hank grunted. “Obviously.” He pulled his keys from the ignition. “Well, those glasses aren’t going to buy themselves. Let’s go, boss.”

“Whatever you say, Lieutenant,” Connor retorted, and Hank laughed as he stepped out of the car and shut his door behind him.

\-----

Hours later (or maybe only 30 minutes), Connor had tried on more frames than there were ugly shirts in Hank’s closet, but hadn’t come any closer to finding himself, or his uniqueness, or whatever it was that would make him feel less like a serial number. Hank wasn’t much of a shopper, and he certainly didn’t care much about fashion, but he did care a lot – too much, if he’d just be honest with himself – about Connor, and he was willing to sit in this uncomfortable chair for hours (minutes) more, providing as many thumbs up or thumbs down as needed to help Connor find his new face. The face _he_ , and not some CyberLife designer, wanted to present to the world.

With a delicate, unnecessary clearing of his throat, Connor diverted Hank’s wandering attention back to the issue at hand and, with raised eyebrows, silently asked Hank’s opinion on the latest concoction of wire and plastic that perched on the bridge of his handsome nose. The frames were pink, and sparkly, and so godawful that even Hank, in his lime green pineapple shirt, struggled to hold back a grimace. Connor wanted his opinion, but Hank had been married before and knew better than to give it without knowing the asker’s thoughts first.

“What do you think, Con? They’re certainly…” Hank scrubbed at his beard “…colorful.”

Connor stepped up close to the mirror hanging conveniently to the side of the endless wall of frames he was standing in front of and squinted at his reflection. Why he squinted, Hank couldn’t say, seeing as he had perfect vision in every circumstance, but the way his nose scrunched and formed a wrinkle between his brows was too adorable a distraction for Hank to think to tease him about it. God, this android was cute.

Connor stepped back, pulled them off, and set them back in their slot on the wall. “I think they’re a little too unique,” he stated decisively.

Hank chuckled, relieved. “Well, I’m glad you said it so I didn’t have to.”

He watched Connor continue perusing the wall, a little forlornly, one hand listlessly fiddling with the tags that hung from the frames. He sighed and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees and lacing his hands together. “Listen, Connor, I want you to get whatever makes you feel good about you, whether that’s sparkly frames, or granny glasses, or a fucking monocle. I’m honored you want me here, but don’t let me talk you out of anything that speaks to you, got it?”

Connor’s mouth quirked in another of his small smiles. He looked at Hank like Hank had all the answers in the world, or at least the answers for Connor’s world, and that was nothing short of terrifying.

“Got it, Hank. It’s just hard sometimes, to know who I am. To know who I want to be.”

Hank shifted, as if trying to alleviate the weight of responsibility he felt press onto his shoulders. Connor was new, and Hank was old, but that beautiful android had brought him back to life, and Hank wanted, he needed, to help Connor navigate his own.

So he shrugged nonchalantly and leaned back in his stiff-backed seat. “Hey, look at me. I’ve been living in this body for fifty-three years, and I still haven’t figured all that shit out. Is this–” he gestured at his scruffy hair, loud shirt, and ratty jeans, “really who I want to be? Hell if I know.”

“Fifty-three years…” Connor murmured, before abruptly pivoting and walking briskly to the optician’s desk. They conferred quietly for a minute while the optician checked her tablet. Then she nodded, said something that made Connor’s face light up with a smile, and walked off to disappear through a door marked “Staff Only.”

Connor returned to Hank’s side and sat in the seat next to him, hands twitching restlessly against his thighs, back as straight as the awful chairs Hank never wanted to sit in again.

Hank looked over at him the same moment Connor turned his head in kind. When he quirked an eyebrow, Connor answered, “I had an idea, and now I’m waiting to see what comes of it.”

“Enlightening,” Hank responded dryly.

Connor’s mouth tipped up at one corner, and he ducked his head. For a moment, he looked almost shy. “I realized something a couple minutes ago, Hank. When you were talking. I don’t need to figure out exactly who I am right now, because I like who I am, even if I don’t know fully what that means. I _want_ to be just who I am right now. And I realized something else.”

Connor lifted his head and looked Hank squarely in the eyes. “You are so much a part of who I’ve become. You were the chance in my life, before I had a life, that helped me see past my programming. You were the first person to hold up a mirror and make me see who I’ve really been all along.” Connor leaned sideways in his chair, placing his hands on the wooden armrests between them. “And I want to honor that, Hank, honor you and your caring heart and steadfast friendship. I want to look in your bathroom mirror each morning and be reminded that no one else has had the experiences I’ve had. No one else has _you_ like I have.”

Connor blinked, and Hank could have sworn his warm, brown eyes shone more brightly in the already bright overhead light. Connor continued, almost on a sigh, “And that’s enough uniqueness for me.”

Hank just stared, willing himself to breathe, positive that the way his heart swelled in his chest was sure to kill him. With Connor watching him intently, he unglued his tongue from the roof of his impossibly dry mouth and croaked, “Our bathroom.”

Connor’s eyebrows drew together in a confused pinch. “Pardon?”

“It’s our bathroom mirror, Con. That house is as much yours as it is mine. You know that, don’t you?”

Connor’s watchful gaze softened until Hank truly thought his heart might burst to see such an expression on someone who called himself a machine only a few short months ago.

“I do now,” Connor said, with a wistful smile, and Hank could have kissed him then and there.

But he did no such thing. Instead, he coughed to clear the hard lump that had lodged itself in his throat. “How do you plan on, um, honoring…uh…me?” He fumbled the electrifying, petrifying words past stiff lips.

Connor’s eyes dropped once to Hank’s chest, then up to his eyes, and Hank flushed with the certainty that he was being scanned. Connor was probably reading his increased heart rate, or smelling the sweat prickling at the back of his neck (because damn, it was suddenly hot in here), or some shit like that. Then, with his lips slightly parted, Connor’s eyes slid to the staff door, and back, before he sat straight again and faced forward, and Hank could breathe again.

“I guess you’ll just have to wait and _see_ ,” Connor smirked.

“Smartass,” Hank grumbled under his breath, though Connor heard him, of course, and that was just fine.

Thankfully for Hank’s increasing curiosity, the optician stepped out of the backroom a moment later and returned, handing a glasses case to Connor as he stood from his chair.

“Here you go, sir,” she smiled. “A brand new style, just delivered this morning.”

“Thank you,” Connor replied, as he stepped back over to the mirror, removing the frames and setting the case down on a shelf beneath it.

From where he was sitting, Hank couldn’t see Connor’s face clearly when he set the glasses on his nose and regarded himself in the mirror, but he couldn’t possibly miss the instantaneous, brilliant flare on his LED, the blips of yellow blending into swiftly spinning blue. Hank knew what that particular lightshow meant: Connor was stunned, he was processing, and he was very, very happy.

Hank shifted restlessly in his seat and asked, unnecessarily, “Well? Do you like ‘em?”

Connor turned to show him, but Hank didn’t look at the frames on his face. Instead, his focus was captured by how Connor glowed, how that excitement that had ignited in their bathroom earlier that morning was now fanned to a flame and lit Connor entirely from within.

The glasses were black plastic, with translucent blue plastic accents, two silver metal dots on the front near the hinges, and a rounded rectangular shape, and Connor was positively gorgeous in them.

“I’ve detected a twenty percent increase in your heart rate, Hank,” he said, because it was his life’s work to mortify Hank at every opportunity, intentionally or not. “Does that mean you find these frames appropriate for my face?”

Appropriate for Connor’s face? Devastating to Hank’s sanity? Whatever, take your pick.

Hank swallowed, throat tight. “Yeah, sure. They’re very…appropriate.”

And Connor just stood there, staring with pleading eyes, and Hank thought, _Aw, what the hell._ “They look really good, Con. Appealing.” He swallowed again, and Connor’s eyes followed the movement. “Attractive.”

Connor’s hands fluttered up to adjust the frames on his face as his LED cycled yellow, just once. “Not distinguished?” he asked slyly, as a tease.

Hank grinned. “Sorry, Con, they’re too nerdy for that.”

Connor grinned back, and they remained like that, smiling at each other like idiots, for too many uncounted seconds before Hank looked away and said, “But I don’t understand what they have to do with me.”

Connor reached behind himself and picked up the case, then walked over and sat down next to Hank again. Earnest eyes held his as Connor answered. “While I was listening to you, I was also reading the tags on the frames. Those tags include the style number.” Connor pulled the glasses off his face and held them up for Hank to see. “Look.”

It was difficult to see without his readers – something Hank refused to admit to – but he finally made out the style number at the top of the tag: 9685, Hank’s birthday, September 6, 1985. Those four simple digits punched Hank right in the gut, and he wheezed out a shuddering breath. His goddamn birthday.

Bewildered and amazed, Hank raised his eyes back to Connor’s. “You picked the frames by the number?”

Connor nodded solemnly.

“But what if they'd been hideous?”

Connor grinned. “But they aren’t. They’re perfect. Do you think that means something, Hank?” He settled the glasses back on his face, then raised a finger to push them into place on his nose, and Hank just about died from the cuteness.

Now, how was Hank supposed to answer that? Did it mean something that Connor’s perfect glasses had Hank’s birthday for a style number? Was this the chance of life that Connor had spoken of earlier telling them that their lives were meant to be always intertwined? Hank had given up on chance, or fate, or luck a long time ago, but Connor hadn’t given up on him, so he was willing to give it another try.

But there was no way Hank could say any of that right now, so what he settled on was, “Sure, Con, it means your weird idea worked out. I’m happy for you.”

Connor’s bottom lip popped out in a charming pout that Hank immediately wanted to nibble on. “It wasn’t a weird idea. It was very logical.” Connor took the glasses off again and folded them primly. “Besides, you love when I’m weird.”

“I love everything about you.” And holy shit, that was not at all what Hank had meant to say, but it sure was what came out of his stupid, lovesick mouth.

While Hank’s heart pounded furiously in his chest, Connor sat perfectly still, seemingly composed, seemingly unaffected. But then an unexpected, yet telltale tinge of blue began to seep from the skin over Connor’s chiseled cheekbones, and Hank’s heart stuttered to a momentary stop.

Connor lifted the frames in his hand until their translucent blue plastic caught the light. “You know what I love, Hank? I love this blue. It was the first thing I noticed about these frames. The way it glows. It’s beautiful, and it reminds me of something like it that is precious to me.”

He shifted his eyes to Hank’s, and Hank nearly melted in the warmth they radiated over him.

“Can you guess what this blue reminds me of?” Connor asked, like the secrets of his future were hidden in the answer.

“Uh…the blue of your LED?” Hank guessed, because he really hadn’t a clue, and that was the best his poor, bewitched mind could do.

Connor slowly shook his head, one corner of his mouth lifting in a tender curve. “The blue of your eyes, Hank.” Connor put the glasses in their open case and placed his fingers on Hank’s wrist. “Do you think _that_ means something, perhaps?”

And Hank did think that meant something, though he could hardly believe it. He also thought that all of this was crazy and could make everything messy. But Connor had said he liked messy, and Hank knew he wanted to be messy if Connor was messy with him. So, Hank breathed in a breath of the brave, laid his hand atop Connor’s fingers, and squeezed. “I’d say it means we need to have an important talk when get home.”

That tender curve in Connor’s lips split wide like a flower opening to the sun as he pulled them both to their feet, closing the case with a snap.

\-----

As Hank stuck his key in the ignition, he watched Connor from the corner of his eye. He was leaning over the center console and full-on preening as he admired his new glasses in the rear-view mirror. Hank would have teased Connor for his vanity if he wasn’t so pleased to see his excitement and happiness. If he didn’t have ample first-hand knowledge of how important it was to feel good about oneself.

Instead of laughing, he asked, “So, you feel more like yourself now?”

Connor paused in his perusal and considered Hank’s question. “I look more like how I want others to see me. I look confident and intelligent, but relaxed and approachable. I look like I have my own opinions, likes and dislikes, and that I cared enough about myself to express them. I look happy. I feel happy.” He twisted his torso so that he was facing Hank. “I don’t feel like a number anymore.”

“You’ve always been so much more than your number, Con. To everyone you interacted with. To me.” Hank raised a tentative hand and smoothed his thumb over the skin above Connor’s right eyebrow, where he knew his serial number was hidden. “But I’m very glad you feel that way to _you_ now, too.”

Connor grabbed Hank’s wrist in a gentle grip and pressed a chaste kiss just below his thumb. “That’s very sweet of you to say, but I’d like to go home now, Hank.”

The gleam in Connor’s eye had Hank clearing his throat yet again. “Yeah,” he choked out, “I bet you would.”

Connor laughed, a delightful, lilting thing that made Hank’s heart sing. But while he listened to his Oldsmobile rumble to life, he suddenly remembered something and said, “Wait, you said this is your _first_ modification.”

Connor titled his head and replied, “Yes, I would like to try a new hairstyle upgrade. Curls, I think.”

And oh god, there went Hank’s sanity again, right out the window. Because if Connor in those glasses was devastating, then Connor in those glasses with messy, finger-beckoning curls would be the death of him.

No longer trusting his voice, Hank just nodded, slipped his car into gear, and pulled away from the curb.

Reaching over to switch on the radio, Connor continued, “I hope you’ll come with me and help me decide what style to get.”

Hank shot him a sidelong glance. “You’re not gonna pick that out by the number, though, right?”

“Of course not, Hank,” Connor grinned, and Hank looked over in time to catch his wink. “That would be weird.”

A/N: Here are Connor's new glasses. Aren't they just perfect?


End file.
